


Turns Out They Are Real

by dreamiflame



Category: Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Yuletide 2008
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-21 22:27:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/602752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamiflame/pseuds/dreamiflame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein Alex and Lara investigate the myth of the Crystal Skulls. Kinda.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Turns Out They Are Real

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Qatesh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qatesh/gifts).



> Thanks to my beta John for the handholding and title suggestion.

Alex West sometimes wondered how he got himself into these messes.

Like now, crouched behind a rough stone altar in an ancient Mayan temple, listening to bullets whiz by over his head. Beside him, Lara Croft shifted, guns in hand, readying herself to jump up and start shooting back. Alex caught her arm and shook his head, pointing below him. They were on an upper floor of the temple, so if they found a way to get through, they could more easily escape the unhappy people shooting at them.

Perhaps 'easily' hadn't been the best way to think of it, Alex considered later when they were safe, hissing as Lara finished tying the bullet wound on his bicep. She was a lot stronger than she looked, and the bandages were tight, almost too tight. He flexed his arm, trying to hold in a grimace, and nodded to her. "I told you this was a bad idea."

Lara shrugged, pulling him up to his feet. "You also said the skulls were a hoax, but those people trying to kill us back at the temple didn't seem to think so."

"Crystal skulls _are_ a hoax. Well-documented, even." Alex pulled his overshirt back on and shouldered his pack, following Lara deeper into the jungle. "And now we're lost in the Amazon with nothing to show for our pains but a hole in my shoulder."

"It's a flesh wound, Alex," Lara sounded scornful, but then, it wasn't _her_ shoulder that had been shot. "We're not lost."

Looking around him, Alex saw trees, vines, flowers, and more of the same farther out. "We're not?" They looked lost to him.

"No." Lara pulled out a compass and consulted it for a moment, then led him through the jungle with unerring directness to the jeep they'd driven in. "Hop in, Alex. Civilization awaits."

Alex swung himself into the jeep and tossed his pack in the backseat. "I thought you hated civilization. Isn't that why you raid tombs?"

Lara gave him a look that in a fair world would have killed him where he sat. "Hold on," she ordered, and started driving. Lara always drove too fast, adrenaline junkie that she was, but here, where there weren't even ideas of roads, she was really pushing her luck. Alex swore and grabbed the dashboard, the jeep frame, anything to keep from bouncing out of the vehicle. He could hear Lara laughing beside him. Bitch, he thought fondly, but he really did like her too much to call her that out loud.

Somehow, though Alex was never quite sure afterwards _how_ , precisely, Lara got them back to what passed for civilization in the part of Belize they were in. Their hosts, a rather adorable elderly couple who had taken them in, led them to a large bathing room and left them to it. Alex could hear the wife tittering as she closed the door.

There was just the one tub, but it looked large enough for both of them, and Alex was hot and tired enough to not want to be a gentleman. He shrugged off his outer shirt, pulled the undershirt he'd been wearing under it off, and bent to untie his boots.

A thump sounded from behind him, and he twisted to look for the source. Lara was already naked, stalking gracefully toward the tub. "You are going to hurry, right?" she said, grinning at him, and Alex just about knocked himself out trying to finish undressing. Lara settled calmly into the tub while he fumbled, and reached for the bar of rough soap their hosts had supplied.

By the time he slid into the opposite end of the tub, Lara was busily soaping up her arms, getting the worst of the dirt and blood- his blood, not hers- off. "I hope you're planning to share that."

Lara gave him a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "Only if you're good."

"Oh, I'm very good."

Lara kicked him. "Ow!"

"Sorry." She didn't look very repentant as she lifted herself partially out of the water to soap up her chest. And now Alex was staring, because, well, Lara was gorgeous, and she was worth staring at. "See, you're not being very good at all."

"Right." Alex was finding it hard to think- he was naked, she was naked, they were in a tub together, why was there no sex happening? He blinked and shook himself, dragging his eyes away from her impressive, and now soap-covered, breasts. "What?"

The water surged up over his chest and Lara was in his lap suddenly, her hand reaching for his and curling his fingers around the soap. "I said, you're not being very good, Alex."

"I'm very good," he said, barely aware he was repeating himself. This was nice. Almost worth being shot and then dragged through the jungle for. He rubbed the soap between his hands and reached for her, sliding bubbles down her back and across her shoulders. "You've just never given me the chance to prove it."

Lara shifted in his lap, curls brushing against his cock, and Alex squeezed the soap so tightly he nearly lost it. "I'm not sure you deserve the chance."

"What if-" he cleared his throat and started again, using the soap to massage her back and press her chest closer to his. "What if I asked very nicely?"

"What if you stop talking?" she countered, and kissed him.

Things progressed rather rapidly after that.

Later, getting dressed again, Alex decided that it had almost been worth being shot and walking- okay, running for his life- away from the temple with nothing. Then Lara sat her pack down next to him and opened it, rummaging around, and Alex saw-

"You stole the skull?" At her unruffled look of innocence, Alex shook his head and whistled. "No wonder we were being shot at. Why is it I always get threatened with guns when I'm with you?"

"Sometimes you're the one doing the threatening, remember?"

Alex flushed. "I apologized for that already."

Lara pulled the skull out and buffed it a little on her shirt. "Maybe I just like to hear it."

Standing up from his crouch, Alex took the skull from her and set it back in her pack, then pulled her close. "I'm terribly sorry, Lady Croft," he said, and kissed her again.


End file.
